From aceska@cue.bc.caWed Dec 28 22:11:14 1994 Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 11:27:30 -0800 From: Adolf Ceska To: ben@cue.bc.ca Subject: BEN # 86 BBBBB EEEEEE NN N ISSN 1188-603X BB B EE NNN N BBBBB EEEEE NN N N BOTANICAL BB B EE NN NN ELECTRONIC BBBBB EEEEEE NN N NEWS No. 86 December 28, 1994 aceska@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Victoria, B.C. ----------------------------------------------------------- Dr. A. Ceska, P.O.Box 8546, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 3S2 ----------------------------------------------------------- NEW "LIVING FOSSIL" FIND IN AUSTRALIA From: Ken Hill originally on TAXACOM A small stand of trees that are considered to represent a third living genus of Araucariaceae was discovered by New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife officers in late 1994. This, now known as the "Wollemi Pine", occurs in a deep, very wet and very sheltered gorge in the Wollemi National Park, in a rugged moun- tainous area within 200 km north-west of Sydney in eastern Australia. With only about 20 adult trees in a single stand, it is one of the rarest trees in Australia. Of the other extant Araucariaceae, it appears closest to Agathis, but it has many features in common with Cretaceous and early Tertiary fossil groups such as Araucarioides. Staff of the Royal Botanic Gar- dens, Sydney, in conjunction with National Parks officers plan to describe and name the new genus and species in 1995 in the journal "Telopea". Studies of DNA and detailed morphology are also in progress at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, together with investigation of vegetative and tissue culture propagation. It is, however, unlikely that plants will become available in less than two years. [See the good article on it in the Thursday, 15 Dec. New York Times. Only 39 individuals (23 adults, some are large trees). Illustrations show trunk, distichous "fernlike" foliage, and cone.] Another recent exciting news was that Gilbert's Potoroo (Potorous gilberti) was rediscovered in Western Australia. A zoology Ph.D. student trapped one at Two Peoples Bay on WA's south coast. They haven't been seen for over 100 years and were thought long extinct. Two Peoples Bay is where the Noisy Scrub- bird was rediscovered in the 1960s again after being thought extinct. Gilbert's Potoroo is a relative of the Long-Nosed Potoroo (Potorous tridactylus) which still exists in reasonable numbers in eastern Australia. (Potoroos are small kangaroo-like marsupials). Andrew Taylor INVITATION TO CARNIVOROUS PLANT LISTSERV From: dngess01@vlsi.ct.louisville.edu (Don) Anyone reading this is invited to join the carnivorous plant listserve. To join, send the message: sub cp First_name Last_name Send this to the address: listserv@opus.hpl.hp.com By the way, south-west Australia has the largest concentration of Drosera species in the world. Some people in our group are working on in-vitro cultivation of Drosera. Anyone with ex- perience in this area is invited to join our group. There is also a society, the International Carnivorous Plant Society. We are always looking for people to write articles for the quar- terly bulletin and to supply seeds (especially Nepenthes and Heliamphora) to our seed exchange. If anyone wants to join the International Carnivorous Plant Society, the dues are $15 (U.S. dollars) per year for those living in the USA or Canada; and $20 per year for others. Send this to: International Carnivorous Plant Society Fullerton Arboretum California State University, Fullerton Fullerton, CA 92634 USA To supply extra carnivorous plant seed to our seed exchange, the address is: Gordon Snelling 300 West Carter Dr. Glendora, CA 91740-5915 USA NEW MAILING LIST ON BIOLOGICAL CONTROL From: Dan Freidus via entomo-l@uoguelph.ca A new list on Biological Control have been set recently. It is running from a listserver in Brazil, and even so the presenta- tion message is in portuguese, I don't believe will exclude messages written in English or Spanish. Subscription to this list can be done by sending the message SUBSCRIBE BIOCONTROL-L Your_First_name Your_Last_name to listserv@ftpt.br The owner of the list is Sidnei de Souza or Dr. Luiz Alexandre Nogueira de Sa' at EMBRAPA/CNPMA C.P. 69 13.820-000 - JAGUARIUNA - SP NATIVE WILDFLOWERS OF CALIFORNIA From: Brother Eric Vogel I am in the process of producing a CD-ROM containing 2,000 pictures of 665 species of native wildflowers of California. This is from a collection of 20,000 slides collected by Brother Alfred Brousseau over his lifetime. It takes the form of super- card stacks, a stack for each alphabetical (latin name) group of flowers. The material has been sent out to a commercial disk producer and I am in the process of checking the "one off" CD before having multiple disks stamped out. You need a Macintosh with a minimum of 4 MB and 256 color capability. I have available a sample (one card, with one flower) that I could e-mail you. It is contained in a self extracting file and since I use Eudora as an internet interface, Eudora "binhexs" everything it sends out. If you are using Eudora, it will auto- matically "binhex" it back to the original form, otherwise you need something like the program BINHEX4. The file that results is a .sea file which self expands upon clicking, yielding a standalone super card stack which is viewed by double-clicking. The file is about 650K hence takes some time unless you are directly connected to internet. I will gladly send it to you upon request. The CD-ROM should be available early January. The CD results from a project whose purpose is to distribute the work of Brother Alfred, and is non-profit, hence I am asking for a $35.00 donation for the CD. Brother Eric Vogel Saint Mary's College POB 5150, Moraga, Ca. 94575 (510)-631-4296 Internet: evogel@stmary-ca.edu